Secret Service urging schools to establish teams for campus threats
Jul 13, 2018, 4:41 AM
(Kevin M. Cox /The Galveston County Daily News via AP)
PHOENIX — The Secret Service wants schools across the United States to establish threat assessment teams in an effort to prevent future school shootings, like the Parkland, Florida, attack that left 17 people dead.
Cristina Beloud, the special agent in charge of the Secret Service office in Phoenix, told KTAR News 92.3 FM that the threat assessment team should consist of some highly-trained school professionals.
“This is a team that can be identified at the school level of teachers, administrators, school resource officers,” Beloud said.
The next step for the threat assessment team is analyzing any information on a potential school threat.
“You pull together this group of people and conduct a threat assessment and implement a crisis prevention system when perhaps a student of concern or a group of students of concern identified at that particular school,” Beloud said.
Beloud said deadly events at schools could have been prevented if people knew what to look for, whether it’s a tweet, an online post or something shared with another student.
According to Beloud, the Secret Service has unveiled plans to help schools establish the threat assessment teams.
“It’s a group of professionals that are at a particular school that have the training, the understanding of the student body, you know, the trust, if you will, of the students,” Beloud said.
Beloud said the Secret Service branch in Phoenix is available to assist Arizona schools in setting up a threat assessment team.